Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) across Asia Pacific are increasingly turning to Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a strategic growth tool, with 75 per cent believing AI agents can both reduce costs and drive revenue.

New research from Salesforce revealed that CFOs expected AI agents to boost company revenue by nearly 20 per cent, transform the business models of 77 per cent of respondents, and shift 58 per cent of agents’ focus from routine tasks to more strategic work.

Salesforce, a San Francisco–based American cloud software company, provides businesses with tools to generate leads, close deals, and enhance customer service.

The survey indicated that, on average, APAC CFOs were allocating nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of their AI budgets to AI agents, digital labour tools capable of autonomously performing both routine and strategic tasks.

Sixty per cent said that such agents were critical to competing in the current economic environment, while 62 per cent report that AI was changing how their businesses spend money.

Salesforce president and chief operating and financial officer Robin Washington said that the introduction of digital labour was not merely a technical upgrade but represented a decisive and strategic shift for CFOs.

He explained that with AI agents, the company was not just transforming business models, but fundamentally reshaping the entire scope of the CFO function, and that this required a new mindset as CFOs expanded their role beyond financial stewardship to also become architects of agentic enterprise value.

The study found that CFOs increasingly view AI as a partner in decision-making, with 83 per cent using it to support business decisions.

Risk assessments (85 per cent), financial forecasting (65 per cent) and profitability analysis (58 per cent) are the top tasks currently being delegated to AI.

Notably, 58 per cent of APAC CFOs expect AI agents to take on more strategic work than routine tasks in the years ahead, it said.

The study indicated that AI adoption was redefining how CFOs evaluate return on investment (ROI).

It reported that half of the respondents had already revised their ROI assessment models due to AI agents, with success now being measured by broader business outcomes such as productivity gains, efficiency improvements, and risk management, rather than solely by financial metrics.

Despite this optimism, challenges remained, with 68 per cent of APAC CFOs citing security and privacy threats as a major concern and 62 per cent noting the long time required to achieve ROI.

Respondents also highlighted ethical risks and the ongoing investment needed to retrain and monitor AI models as factors complicating ROI measurement.

Globally, CFOs had faced pressure in 2024 to accelerate technology-driven ROI, but the study showed a clear shift, with leaders now viewing AI’s value as long-term and transformational.

Salesforce conducted the double-blind survey in partnership with Morning Consult, interviewing 261 CFOs across 24 countries, including 60 from APAC markets such as Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea.